SIMON NOTT: Never Judge A Book

Since working for Star Sports, formerly as an employee and now from time to time as a freelancer, I have become emotionally attached and let’s be honest, very proud of the #BettingPeople series. It started with a hand-held phone pointed at Hayley Turner and other Shergar Cup jockeys at the Sydney Arms back in 2017 then blew up when Ben dispatched me to interview a professional punter called Neil Channing. Getting on for five years later and we’re into the 200’s of interviews.

In that time, I’ve been lucky enough to talk to some incredibly inspirational and interesting people. It doesn’t just happen though, there’s research and editing but much of the work is actually getting the interviewee to become one. Some people just wish to stay under the radar and say no straight away.

Others are much keener and say yes straight away but there are a few interviews that have literally taken years to happen and others that said they would but ultimately haven’t happened at all. The latest, with bookmaking legend Victor Chandler has taken a while to arrange, but when everything aligned, I flew to Gibraltar and had the honour of staying the night as a guest of Victor and his wife Caroline at their Spanish ranch, something money can’t buy and a real privilege.

The flight over to interview Victor gave me the chance to read Graham Sharpe’s new book. Graham was one of my very early #BettingPeople interviewees, even before it was officially christened thus. For those that don’t know, Graham was a ground-breaking PR man for William Hill, taking the bookmaker from the back page to the front with various attention-grabbing markets and founded the ‘William Hill Sports Book Of The Year Award’. I’d done a bit of music PR for bands so was keen to meet him, especially after I discovered Graham shared my addiction for record collecting, the interview even conducted in a record shop. Graham is also a prolific author, on horse racing, music and beyond. His new book which I settled down in my easyJet seat to read, ‘ProstRate Cancer – The Misunderstood Male Killer,’ is in the latter category.

To say that I ‘enjoyed’ the book might be a bad choice of words to describe what is after all a very personal account of the author and others’ suffering from cancer. I was riveted by it though, which is probably the same compliment though more fitting. Graham has related his personal journey from discovering he had cancer through the treatments he had to endure to eradicate it. I’m not going to go into too much detail, but the dark humour that he exhibits throughout the book when describing having to ditch his dignity was probably a necessary part of his armoury, conscious or not. As well as the description of the treatment there’s wonderfully vivid accounts of people watching in waiting rooms and lasting relationships forged that will make you smile, for differing reasons.

It would be too much of an assumption on my part to say that I’ve become friends with Graham, but we certainly have kept in touch, be it chatting about a self-indulgent splash out on some old vinyl or just a general chitchat mainly by messenger. This would have included the period the book covers. He never mentioned his cancer to me once, not that he would to me, but as far as I can gather, not to anyone else apart from his very nearest and dearest. That trait appears to be a common one for Prostate Cancer, the misspelled book title is a play of words if you were wondering, sufferers. People will certainly have heard of Prostate Cancer and may well even know someone that had it. The chances are, you know a lot more people with it than you realise. I was astonished when at the end of the book there’s a mention of men that have had and thankfully mostly recovered from the condition, it’s big odds that many of us will be aware that they had suffered it.

I devoured the book in four solid sittings, excuse the pun, read the book and you’ll get it, the return flight to interview Victor and a similar ticket on a train Tiverton to London Paddington. I read the last page enlightened, and grateful that as I’m of that certain age my card is marked on what to look for.

It also left me feeling a little prang of guilt. One of the men mentioned was on the #BettingPeople radar, he’d agreed to do the interview and even gave me his home phone number. Frustratingly, he was never available when I tried to call, either in the bath, walking the dog or similar.

I knew that if I got him in the can, the stories he could have told me would have been gold. With that in mind I persevered pestering him a little longer than I would normally have done. Ultimately, I did give up, but not before asking others closer to him to bug him again. I just assumed he was being awkward and admit I was a little annoyed that he’d ‘messed me about’.

He’s since passed away, probably the last thing he needed while he was dealing with much more important things was me bugging him for a triviality. I now feel bad, though of course I didn’t know.

That’s the main message to take away from ‘ProstRate Cancer – The Misunderstood Male Killer’, make sure you DO know. Not about who’s got it or had Prostate Cancer but the early signs so should any of us be the unfortunate ‘winner’ of this 8/1 chance, our card has been marked, we can spot the symptoms very early on and get checked out.

Forget any #BettingPeople interviews you might have watched, enjoyed and learned from, the information in this book could prove priceless, you can bet your life on it.

Graham writes a weekly column for Star Sports https://www.starsportsbet.co.uk/category/sharpe-mind/

SIMON

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Views of authors do not necessarily represent views of Star Sports Bookmakers.

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Simon Nott is author of: Skint Mob! Tales from the Betting Ring
available on Kindle CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS

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